


[Abandoned WIP] Running in the Dark

by Zeke Black (istia)



Series: Abandoned WIP [1]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV), The Professionals (TV 1977)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Crossover, M/M, Old West, POV Mary Travis, POV Ray Doyle, POV Vin Tanner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 07:14:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17442341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/Zeke%20Black
Summary: Two Englishmen on a secret mission arrive in the small town of Four Corners, New Mexico, where they encounter all seven of the local lawmen. Set in the canonical Mag7 world, so an Old West AU for Bodie and Doyle.





	[Abandoned WIP] Running in the Dark

###### New Mexico territory, 1872

The sun was at its highest, most merciless point when Mary Travis stepped out of the cool interior of the Clarion newspaper office. About to turn toward the restaurant, she paused at the edge of the boardwalk as two riders moving slowly down the quiet street came into view. They were strangers, and apparently in need of aid. One was slumped over the neck of a big gray, the reins held by a man in front on a weary-looking palomino.

When a shaft of sunshine angling through the gap between the high false fronts of Digger Dave's and the cigar shop next door touched them, the two horses momentarily shone silver and gold before they stepped into shadow and became ordinary, weary horseflesh again. As she stood, frowning with concern, they drew to a stop in front of her. The first man nodded his head to her, polite but brief and she met cold, narrowed eyes staring at her from the shadow of a black, low-crowned stetson. A shiver ran down her spine despite the heat.

"Ma'am."

The voice was polite and calm, though she remained wary as the hard eyes--green as peridots--continued to gaze at her unwaveringly; she prickled at the sensation of being sized-up.

"Could you tell me if there's a doctor in town?"

"We don't have a doctor, I'm afraid, but Nathan is a healer and can help with most injuries. Is your friend badly hurt?"

"Where might we find this Nathan?"

His accent was foreign, British; quite unlike the more familiar lilt of the Scandinavian, German, and Irish immigrants she was used to encountering.

"His clinic is at the corner, above Mr. Smith's Livery and Feed." She pointed down the street, and it felt stupidly like a release when his sharp eyes left her to look to the south end of town. "I'm not sure if he'll be there, though. I'll see if I can find him for you, Mr.--?"

"Thank you, ma'am." He tipped his hat briefly.

As she moved away, she heard a weaker voice with a similar accent say, "Where are we?"

"Haven't a clue, mate. Just hang on, right, there's supposed to be a sawbones of some sort here."

As she headed for the saloon, the two horses moved slowly past her toward Nathan's clinic. Catching sight of one of their young peacekeepers inside Potter's mercantile, she stepped into the doorway.

"JD."

He was bent over peering into a glass case of knives, and straightened to smile at her. "Afternoon, Mary."

She smiled back; JD had the same kind of infectious grin his older mentor, Buck Wilmington, wielded with infinite charm.

She sobered. "Do you know where Nathan is? Two strangers just came into town, and one appears to be injured."

JD stepped onto the boardwalk and looked toward the clinic, his face serious and appraising. He was still a youngster in many ways, but he took his job as part of the seven-man lawkeeping team in town seriously.

"I think he was helping out Josiah at the church; I'll fetch him." The boy took off at a run, youthful energy in full motion.

She smiled, and continued along the boardwalk, trying to ignore the way her heart seemed to speed up slightly as she noticed the dark-clad figure seated outside the saloon. The man had his sleeves rolled up and his hat off and looked--well, appealing was hardly an appropriate term. Chris Larabee was a formidable man in a great many ways. The ex-gunfighter turned lawman was not a man who most people with any sense wanted to cross. His towering presence was an asset to the town; he and his six fellow peacekeepers provided the citizens of Four Corners a degree of protection for which they had never even dared dream a year before. The fact that the leader of the group was also a most attractive man was really beside the point. She was an independent widow, the owner and operator of the Clarion newspaper, and the mother of a young son. Romance was certainly not in the cards for her, as Mr. Standish might say.

She frowned at the intrusion into her mind of the disreputable gambler's impudent Southern drawl and resolutely pushed Mr. Standish into the mental oblivion where he belonged, though these days increasingly refused to stay.

Chris Larabee looked up as she approached, and set down his book with a nod. His hair, uncovered for once, though receding slightly at the temples, was as thick and tawny as a cougar's ruff. There were lines around his eyes and his fine-cut mouth etched into the skin from forty years of squinting into the sun and from anger and passion. Some of the lines might once have begun as laugh-lines, but laughter hadn't deepened them since the deaths of his wife and child four years before. She had no idea what the family man Chris Larabee might have been like; she knew only the hard and dangerous gunman, the man who had once termed himself "the bad element." Inside the tough exterior, though, was a man who was gentle with and protective of her own son, and she was sure that he would one day be ready to love again. Not that that had anything to do with her, of course.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Larabee."

"Mary."

"We appear to have some visitors in town."

"So it seems." He didn't glance toward the clinic, which informed her he had already noted the presence of the newcomers.

"They seem to be foreign. English, I think."

He accepted that piece of information without expression. Closing his book and laying it aside, he stood, a lean form that radiated tensile strength as his heated body moved closer to hers. He offered her a half-smile, a mere quirk of his lips, which from Chris Larabee was the equivalent of a big, welcoming grin. She felt warmed throughout.

"I was about to have lunch. Would you join me?"

"Miz Sorensen's dumpling stew?"

"I might avoid the dumplings this time," he acknowledged, with a ghost of a laugh to match her own at what she thought of as one of their private jokes, and took her arm in a light but firm grip.

They walked into the cool interior of the restaurant to find most of the tables occupied. As she was looking about for a place, she felt a gentle tug on her arm toward the left and found herself, to her disappointment, being handed into a seat at a table that already boasted an occupant.

"Miz Travis. I'm charmed that you could join me."

"Mr. Standish," she said, hollowly.

Mr. Larabee didn't acknowledge his fellow peacekeeper--but, then, he rarely did. Why the unruly gambler was part of the group, she really wasn't sure. He hardly fit in. He dressed differently from the others, he spoke differently, and he had decidedly dubious ethics. Moreover, while the other six men tended to pair off in companionable duos, Mr. Standish was a loner. Not that he had ever let the town down in a time of crisis, but...still. The man was a con artist, a cardsharp, a cheat, and a swindler. He had signed on as a peacekeeper only because the alternative was jail. Granted, that was well over a year ago and he had undoubtedly expiated whatever crime he had originally committed, though he showed no signs of moving on. She had heard he was very good with children, but she was glad he had never accompanied Mr. Larabee, as one of the others sometimes did, when he took Billy fishing or hunting. Though it had to be said that few activities that occurred outside the saloon appeared to be of even remote interest to Mr. Standish.

"I would recommend avoiding the so-called crepes," he was drawling now. "The estimable Miz Sorensen has many culinary talents, but crepes do not fall among them. More like flapjacks, and tough ones at that. Perhaps her trick lies in making extra portions of dumplings and rolling them into flapjack shapes."

Mr. Larabee's lips quirked, although he appeared as usual to be paying no attention to the Southerner's incessant gabbing. She devoted her own attention to the menu, and gave her order for a light repast to Miz Sorensen's childlike daughter when the girl eventually appeared, flushed and harassed-looking. She couldn't help frowning as she heard the girl stammering with pleasure in response to Mr. Standish's honeyed speech and roguishly dimpled smile. He couldn't exactly be accused of outright flirting, but, really, she wouldn't trust the man alone with the child for a moment despite the stories of his apparent attempts to protect her when the Tucker Crow gang had raided the town a few months before. He'd failed to protect the girl, anyway, as it had turned out. If it had been Mr. Larabee, she was sure the outcome would have been entirely different.

They were halfway through the meal, and Mr. Standish had yet to deplete his store of drawled, but sharply witty, repartee, when she saw both men tense and become alert. They had placed her, as usual, with her back to the door, so she was aware of what was happening only when Mr. Larabee stood and moved a couple of paces away.

"Can I help you?"

"I was hoping for a meal, but perhaps the saloon is a likelier prospect." The English accent piqued her curiosity, and she turned her head to see the lean, dusty figure of the stranger standing beside Mr. Larabee

"Why don't you join us? The food at the saloon can't match Miz Sorensen's cooking."

"As long as you avoid the crepes," Mr. Standish murmured, as the stranger sat in the chair between herself and him. Holding the man's eyes, he added, "And the dumplings."

She was surprised to see humor lighting the stranger's tired eyes. Why people seemed to find the Southerner entertaining, she really could not comprehend.

"Chris Larabee." Mr. Larabee held out a hand, which the stranger, after a swift scrutiny of Mr. Larabee's face, shook. Mr. Larabee indicated his companion: "Ezra Standish." The stranger didn't hesitate before accepting the proffered hand this time. "Miz Travis, who runs the Clarion News."

The stranger looked at her with narrowed eyes and she felt the same chill she had in the street, but the look was gone in an instant, replaced by a singularly charming smile. He had extraordinary eyes, large and tip-tilted in a battered face. He was about Mr. Standish's age, perhaps a year or two older, but his face revealed a depth of character and experience she was confident the slick gambler would never match. When he smiled at her, she noticed a broken front tooth, and the removal of his hat revealed a thick shock of unruly brown curls. He should have looked as nondescript and commonplace as most of the drifters who wandered the frontier, but he was as distinctive in his way as Chris Larabee, and that was an unsettling feeling.

His hand, she noted, as she held it for a moment, although callused on the palm and fingers like a gunman's, was as fine-boned and smooth-skinned as Mr. Standish's. The man was an enigma, and she felt her reporter's hackles rising.

"Mark Layton," he said into the expectant silence after the formalities were completed. 

"What brings you to these salubrious parts, Mr. Layton?" Mr. Standish inquired, after the man had gulped an entire glass of water, slurping with unselfconscious vigor, and given his order for lunch.

"Oh, we're just passing through. We'll be moving on as soon as my mate is fit to travel."

"How is your friend?"

"He'll be fine, thank you, ma'am. Just got a bit of a fever and needs some rest."

They paused to watch him drain another glass of water, and then tackle the plate of savory chicken the Sorenson girl placed in front of him. He appeared to be half-starved as well as trail-weary.

Only after the man had blunted his appetite did Mr. Larabee ask, in a soft yet somehow steely voice, "Gunshot wound?"

The stranger raised his eyes from his plate and regarded Mr. Larabee with a kind of steely attentiveness of his own.

"Knife, actually. He seems to be cursed around knives; attracts 'em like a magnet." 

The unlooked-for warmth in his voice made her blink. What an extraordinary response to have toward a wounded friend. 

He was still gazing into Mr. Larabee's eyes. "I expect your healer will obligingly fill you in on all the sordid details."

Mr. Larabee smiled, the lines tightening around his eyes. "I'll be sure to ask him."

"I'm sure you will." A similarly feral smile touched Mr. Layton's face before he turned his attention back to his food.

She couldn't resist sliding into reporter's mode as Mr. Larabee and Mr. Standish looked on while sipping coffee.

"Where are you from, Mr. Layton?"

"England."

"You're a long way from home. Have you been in America for long?"

"No."

"What brought you out west?"

"The train, the stage, a horse, and, for a brief but memorable interlude, a mule train. I still sometimes fancy I can smell sweaty mule in my sleep."

Mr. Standish appeared to be biting the inside of his cheek. She frowned at him, but he only looked guilelessly back at her. Mr. Larabee, however, was watching the stranger with a considering look that gave her the encouragement to continue her--interrogation was hardly the word; she was a reporter with a duty to discover the facts so that she could disseminate news of events of note in their community to her readers.

"You have a sense of humor, Mr. Layton."

"Me, ma'am? Nah, not me. A plain and simple man, that's me." He slurped his coffee with a pleasure that bordered on the sensual.

Somewhat disconcertingly so.

She floundered for a moment, aware of a chuckle from the gambler, before she was able to pull her thoughts together. 

"We don't meet many people of your kind this far west--" She faltered as his eyes abruptly rested on her with chilling intensity.

"'People of my kind'? And what kind might that be?"

"English, I meant, Mr. Layton. We see quite a few Irish, and even some Scotch, but not many Englishmen."

"Ah, well, must be the arid landscape, so different from the green and rolling hills of home." He spoke in a dry tone that lacked all the earlier harshness, and he seemed almost sad for a moment. He gave a sudden, amazingly husky and sensual laugh, however, and assumed a broad Scottish accent. "Scots, laddie! You drink Scotch, which is the name of the finest spirit in the world, not a people." He chuckled again, apparently absorbed in a private joke, before looking up at them ruefully. "Sorry; got lost in a memory there for a minute. I know a Scot, you see, and he's a fierce chap when it comes to getting all things Scottish correct."

Mr. Larabee had a casual air that didn't fool her for a moment. "This Scot someone we're likely to be meeting?"

"Nah, not him. Doesn't travel well. Ships and Scotch don't go together." Private humor again laced his tired voice.

"Are you intending to return to England, Mr. Layton, or will you be settling in America?"

"Our intentions, ma'am, are to return to England as soon as possible. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to check on my mate and then look for a place to spend the night."

She was about to mention the clean and genteel accommodations at the Hansford Boarding House when Mr. Standish pre-empted her.

"I can recommend the saloon as a relatively inexpensive but acceptable domicile."

Mr. Standish stood at the man's nod, and they moved toward the door together. Turning her head, she noted that they were about the same height. It was curious that, although the gambler was dressed in his usual gaudy finery, the eye was drawn rather to the drably-dressed figure at his side who moved with a singularly fluid grace of movement. She couldn't recall ever seeing anyone move quite like that, male or female

"Layton," Mr. Larabee called, just as the pair reached the door.

The stranger turned, hands resting on his gunbelt, not in a threatening stance, but casually, as though he were settling into an accustomed pose.

"Mr. Larabee?"

"What did you say your friend's name was?"

A hint of a smile touched the odd face with humor once more, and the voice was coolly amused. "I didn't. But it's Bentley."

"Just Bentley? That all?"

"That's all he'll answer to. But it's David Bentley--for the sake of making further inquiries."

The challenge sparked between their eyes again, although each man was faintly smiling in that matched, dangerous way they shared. The stranger broke the gaze first, turning on a heel and walking out to join Mr. Standish on the boardwalk.

:::::::

Vin Tanner figured there was nothing to match the pleasure of a draft of beer after a day of successful, but hot and dusty, hunting. He drank down a quarter of the big glassful in one long, luxurious go, wiped his hand across his mouth, and turned to look around the saloon. Josiah, Nathan, Chris, and Ezra were at a table near the back. Ezra, for once, wasn't absorbed in a poker game. He glanced around the room once more; did seem to be slim pickings at the moment. Ezra'd probably fleeced all the current marks and had to wait for a new bunch to arrive.

He moved to the table and slid into the chair next to Josiah, stretching out his legs under the table with pleasurable ease as he listened to Nathan talking about some patient.

"Should be able to travel in a few days, though he'd be better to rest up for a week. I cleaned the wound and stitched it, but there's a bit of infection. Think it'll be okay, but it'll just get bad again if he goes jostling it too soon. And the fever's not bad, but it won't be getting any better if he don't rest up. The man's outright exhausted. I didn't even have to give him any laudanum; he just plain passed out on me."

"Who're we talkin' about?"

Chris's eyes flicked toward him with a nod of greeting. "Couple of strangers come into town this afternoon. One of them had tangled with the wrong end of a knife, in some circumstance we ain't heard about yet."

JD bounced into the bar and flopped into a seat breathlessly. He wiped a hand across his perspiring brow, pulled a face at the whiskey the others were drinking, and eyed the beer. Vin pulled it protectively close, grinning at the kid's grimace.

"Ain't no posters for a Layton or Bentley, Chris."

"My, my, well, isn't that astonishing."

JD frowned at Ezra. "I checked the pictures, too, real carefully." He turned back to Chris. "There ain't no one like the Layton fellow, but I don't know what the other one looks like."

"And we all know what a high caliber the portraiture on wanted posters attains."

Vin tilted his head as he studied Ezra across the table. _Well, lookie there, something itchy seemed to have crawled right up Ezra's butt._ Seemed like Vin'd actually missed something for once on one of his jaunts out of town. He looked thoughtfully from one friend's face to another while Josiah explained to a confused-looking JD what Ezra had said.

"I read the descriptions, too!" Indignation laced the kid's voice. "That Layton fellow's pretty unusual looking, you know, with all those curls and that busted cheek. None of 'em sound anything like him."

Chris turned to Nathan. "What's Bentley look like?"

"Dark hair, cut real short. Dark blue eyes. About Vin's height. Strong and fit, not as skinny as the other one. A good-looking fella, but there's nothing much unusual about him that stands out, like Layton."

"So what've these two fellas done that've got you all suspicious?" Vin looked around the table.

Ezra was at his most sarcastic, which was saying a bunch. "What they did, Mr. Tanner, was ride into town seeking help. This heinous act is apparently on its way to becoming a capital crime in our fair little backwater metropolis." He knocked back a shot of whiskey, grimaced, and pulled out his silver flask to refill the glass with the fine malt he kept for his own use.

Vin settled his eyes on Chris. Chris's instincts were finely honed in reading people. If Chris thought there was a possible problem with the two strangers, then it was quite likely to be true. Chris met his eyes, and Vin could read the wariness in them.

"Trouble?"

"Maybe."

"So what should we do?" JD asked.

Chris broke the look and glanced at JD, a humorless smile touching his lips. "Nothing we can do, JD. They ain't done nothing wrong."

The unspoken "yet" hung in the air.

"Lordy." Ezra sighed.

"Speak of the devil," Josiah murmured, and everyone turned to look at the stairs.

Vin watched as the man walked down with a casual ease that had the lie put to it by his narrowed, watchful eyes and a long-fingered hand that rested on the butt of the gun riding low on his right hip. He looked to be toting an Army Colt .44 with oak grips. The plain holster was tied down around his thigh in a businesslike manner, and looked both worn and well-cared for. He was dressed ordinarily enough in navy duck pants--worn even tighter than Chris wore his black ones, which Vin wouldn't have thought possible!--and a white Dixon stripe shirt with patterned navy and burgundy stripes. He wasn't wearing a jacket or vest, and the sleeves of the shirt were rolled up, revealing thin but sinewy forearms. He also wore no hat, and that mop of curls of his, looking newly-washed shiny in the lantern light, might indeed be what the posters liked to point out as a special mark.

Vin grinned; the fella's hair was even more like to grab folks' eyes than his own long, wavy locks tended to do.

The assessing eyes passed over their table before continuing on around the room in an apparently casual survey that the intensity in the probing look betrayed. The gaze finished once more on them, and Layton walked toward the table with a collected grace in his own body that put Vin in mind of a long-legged elk. The way he held his head up as he walked, he should be sporting a fine, big rack, and anybody foolhardy enough to challenge him would learn what that rack could do.

Not a man to be taken lightly. No wonder Chris was on the watch, eyes under his hat settled on the man and taking his measure.

Layton stopped at their table. You wouldn't think a man with so many slightly off-kilter features could be that attractive, but he managed it. The busted cheek JD'd mentioned was the right cheekbone, which appeared to have been broken at some point and had healed lumpy, setting the eye above it at a tilt. Large green eyes, a shade between the lightness of Ezra's and the darkness of Chris's, looked at each of them with a coolly guarded blankness that gave nothing away. He did look tired, though, and strained.

"Good evening, Mr. Layton. Won't you join us?"

"Thank you, Mr. Standish, but I'm going to check on my partner. How is he doing, Mr. Jackson?"

Chris spoke sharp and fast, with all the subtlety of a riled rattler. "Partner?"

"My friend." Layton's cool voice dripped with boredom. "It's an English term, like mate."

He almost matched Ezra for arrogance. And, just as when he was faced with Ezra at his most scornful, Chris's eyes narrowed and his lips pursed.

"He's doing pretty good," Nathan the peacemaker said. "Sleeping sound when I left him a few minutes ago. You might want to just let him be for a bit. The man needs rest."

A smile touched Layton's mouth. "I won't disturb him."

As he headed for the doors, Nathan called, "He was muttering in his fever earlier. Kept asking for someone called Ray. Any idea who that might be?"

Vin would have missed the way Layton's back stiffened if he hadn't been paying close attention. In the blink of an eye, the tension melted away, leaving the broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped figure looking as relaxed and loose-limbed as he had previously. Layton turned and took a step back toward the table with a rueful look.

"That would be me. It's what the sod calls me, at least when I'm not around to thump him." His mobile face twisted into a ferocious scowl. "Claims I'm a ray of sunshine."

Ezra was the first to laugh, with Josiah's guffaws following fast and each of the rest of them joining in. Even Chris shook his head and smiled.

"It's all very well for you!" Layton's scowl became even more fierce as he raked a hand through his already wild curls. "You don't have to put up with the prat!" He turned and stalked out the door with stiff-legged annoyance apparent in every step.

Oddly enough, when they'd quieted down, he noticed it was Ezra who looked thoughtful as he played with his shot glass. Ezra, the master of misdirection and cons, who could spot both amateurs and professionals when it came to playing his own game with all the keenness of a hoot-owl swooping on its prey.

:::::::

The shades were drawn in the clinic and no lamp was lit. He fumbled in the darkness until he found a kerosene lantern and matches set to hand on the bureau next to the door. By the light, he looked across at his partner lying in the bed, and scrubbed a hand tiredly over his face. The clinic was cool and peaceful, with the clean scent of the dried herbs hanging in bunches from the rafters mellowing the sharper tangs of oily tinctures and medicinal compounds. The healer seemed to know his trade, even if he wasn't a proper doctor. Hell, the kind of doctors who turned up in the territories often seemed to be more familiar with the inside of a bottle than the ways of healing people, anyway. Jackson wasn't that sort at all.

He ignored the chair set against the wall and sat instead on the edge of the bed. His hand moved to touch his sleeping partner virtually of its own accord, and he repressed the urge, tucking both his hands into his armpits to control them. He couldn't stop himself from leaning forward, however, to get close, as close as he could. To smell Bodie, to have the taint of Bodie's sick-bed sweat prickle his nostrils, and to see up close that he was breathing deeply and evenly, and that the dryness of fever had given away to a faint sheen of healthy sweat.

Damn you, Bodie. Damn you to hell for doing this to me. Stupid bloody arsehole.

Bodie murmured deep in his throat, one of the soft, familiar sounds he made in his sleep, and shifted slightly. Like Jackson had said, he was in a natural, healing sleep, not drifting in the semi-consciousness of the past two days. A few more hours rest and, if they were lucky, just enough time to let the wound in his side knit together a bit, and they'd have a chance when they hit the trail again. A small chance, but more of a one than he'd thought they'd be getting in recent days as he'd hauled Bodie's mumbling, fevered carcase from one makeshift camp to the next, the desperation snapping at his heels getting ever nearer. And then, Sod's Law being what it was, when they finally hit upon a town in this godforsaken country, it had a joke of its own to hold over them.

He let his head fall back as he scrubbed a hand over his face. At least he'd managed a bath, after Standish had--ever so delicately--pointed out the bathhouse to him on their way to the saloon. Whatever else this sorry town might dish up for them, at least it felt like balm to be clean again. He'd dropped off their spare clothes with the local mangle woman, too, and would be able to pick them up tomorrow afternoon, all going well. Clean body, clean clothes--now all he needed was the clean mind.

Bodie's movement had dislodged the blanket from one shoulder. The smooth, pale skin beckoned to his fingers, which itched with the need to touch. Just one touch on cool skin. A reassurance for himself, that was all, that the fever was really gone, or down at least. Almost gone. He needed to know. Had a right to know, didn't he, after all the sod had put him through. All the worry and the fear and the desperation of the past few days. He wouldn't disturb Bodie; just needed to confirm for himself that the healer knew what he was talking about. Even as competent as he seemed, Jackson was a stranger.

You never knew. Never could trust anyone: except your partner. Not if you wanted to keep yourself and said partner alive. And while he'd spent hours on the trail devising various intricate means by which he intended to murder Bodie once he was well again, that was his fucking privilege alone. No one else was going to have a chance at it, dammit.

His fingers moved hungrily on the soft skin despite his care to keep his touch light. Bodie was cooler; just felt sleep-warmed now. Maybe just a hint of lingering fever that a bit of time and rest would cure. All he had to do was keep the potential problems at bay long enough to allow Bodie the necessary healing time.

If only he weren't quite so tired himself, it wouldn't be such a daunting task. And this town, seemingly the perfect resting place, had its own homegrown danger. He'd had no choice about stopping here, though. It was either seek help or risk losing Bodie, and, whatever happened, there hadn't been any choice there. Damn, but he hated no-choice situations.

He realised his hand was pressing flat-palmed against Bodie's shoulder, absorbing as much touch as he could get, only when Bodie stirred. He looked up to see Bodie's long, thick lashes fluttering, and couldn't be entirely sorry he'd inadvertently awakened him. Bodie blinked several times, apparently trying to bring him into focus, and he couldn't help grinning at the daft expression on Bodie's familiar face. Always looked a bit like the village idiot when he was just waking up.

Though, of course, he was the real idiot, finding that look endearing. He scowled down at Bodie to banish any possible hint of his own daftness from his face.

"Wha--"

"Wha to you, too, mate. How're you feeling?"

He brushed damp tendrils of hair off Bodie's forehead. Since he'd managed willy-nilly to wake him, he might as well go all hog and satisfy every bit of his need to touch. They wouldn't have much chance for touching until they were back on the trail alone, and, given the speed at which they'd have to move, not much chance then, either. He felt a pang, thinking involuntarily of his lodgings in London. Just two small rooms in the attics of a mansion fallen on hard times, but a blissful haven when he and Bodie curled up alone together in his bed. Either his lodgings or Bodie's were the only safe place the likes of them were ever going to know in their lives.

Home, however, was a long ways off, and thinking about it was more likely to get them killed than fleet their way back.

Bodie's eyes had shifted from him to survey the room.

"Healer's room." Supposed he ought to help the sod out since even waking up didn't seem to be restoring Bodie's thinking processes, dulled in the midst of potential danger in a way that frankly scared him.

"We made it to a town." It wasn't a question; reckon Bodie's weary brain was waking up after all.

"Four Corners, New Mexico."

"New Mexico?"

He shrugged. "Must have crossed a border somewhere. We're still west of the Rio Grande."

"Any sign--?"

"No."

Bodie bit off a groan as he shifted and lifted an arm to touch him in his turn. They both had the need, both starved of the chances.

He leaned his cheek into Bodie's rough palm and let his eyes fall shut with a sigh. He thought he could stay here, like this, all night, and that the physical connection between them alone could heal all the ills in both of them.

"All right, Ray? You look exhausted. Lie down for a few minutes."

It wasn't a smart move by any means, he knew that, but he let Bodie urge him down beside him, anyway. He lay on his side, taking up as little space as he could on the narrow bed, but pressed fully against Bodie's length under the blankets. He used Bodie's shoulder as a pillow and let Bodie draw his hand to his mouth and kiss his fingertips. The silly gesture warmed him through. They were both damn fools.

"You'll have to watch that, sunshine."

"Hmm?"

"'Ray.' Seems you mumbled it in your fever. The healer wanted to know who it meant."

"Shiii--"

He watched as Bodie's mouth twisted into an angry knot. Bodie's fingers tightened on his as he spoke in a soft sigh. "Sorry, mate."

He shrugged. "I told 'em it was your nickname for me. They seemed to accept it, but--"

"But?"

"We might have done the proverbial jump from the frying pan into the fire. Can you believe this place has not one, not two, but _seven_ lawmen?"

"Fuck."

"Well put."

It was a pleasure just lying back and watching Bodie really think again. The cloud of despairing loneliness that had been suffocating him for the past few days lightened just enough to lift his spirits a tad. He let Bodie ponder their position for a few moments before giving him more of the information he'd gleaned.

"The actual sheriff's just a kid, though I wouldn't count on him not being able to handle the twin Colts he wears. The others are a motley group. Your healer's one of 'em, by the by, so keep your lip hobbled."

"The darky?" The surprise in Bodie's voice was understandable; there were fewer darky lawmen than there were darky healers, even out here in the post Civil War territories.

"Yeah. Don't let that gentle face fool you. I haven't met 'em all, but another one's a gambler and still another is the local preacher."

"Bloody hell."

Bodie lifted his head from the pillow to slant a disbelieving look at him; he shrugged, smiling faintly, before becoming serious once more. "The one to watch out for, though, is the leader. Name of Larabee. Chris Larabee."

Comprehension quickly followed the thoughtful look on Bodie's face. " _The_ Chris Larabee? Reckon it's the same one?"

"Doubt if there's more than one of that name. Anyway, yeah, he fits the legend, if you weed out the inevitable exaggerations."

"What the hell is a gunslinger doing as the law in a penny-ante town way out here on the edge of nowhere?"

"Dunno, mate, he didn't share his life story with me. Doesn't seem to like me, actually."

"Oh, yeh? How often have I told you to work on that charm of yours, eh? The rough-shod approach works all right for Cowley, but you, my Raymond, would be better off imitating my ever-so-subtle but engaging method of approaching strangers. You may not be as tall, dark, and engagingly modest as I am, but you have your own unique, er, qualities. Deep down, underneath it all."

He smiled, letting his eyes drift shut, resting against Bodie's firm shoulder, letting Bodie's deep voice and Bodie's hand rubbing his back soothe him towards sleep. Just a brief rest was all he needed, close to Bodie like this, with the scent and feel of Bodie to validate the conviction, illusory though it may prove to be, that they were all right. That they were going to be all right, him and Bodie, far from home though they were and with a rocky road still ahead of them before they made it safely back home. Just get past this present impasse, and they'd be fine.

"Ray. Better not go to sleep, sweetheart." 

"Uhmm."

Bodie's voice abruptly sharpened. "Doyle! Footsteps."

He woke to full alertness as though he'd been doused with ice water. He scrambled off the bed and was standing a couple of feet away, between the bed and the door, his hand resting on his gun, when the knob turned. He blinked and relaxed with an inward sigh when he saw Jackson's tall, lean figure outlined in the doorway. He felt the tension flow out of his hand and felt abruptly crushed under a weight of exhaustion. Too much tension lately; too many hard days, too many situations that had got his juices flowing and left him sweating and queasy in the aftermath.

From somewhere, he dredged up a smile for Jackson, who looked him over rapidly from head to foot before darting his eyes past him to the bed. He turned his back to the healer as though he had no doubt that he could trust the stranger, and managed a more genuine smile for Bodie. He really shouldn't have woken him up, he supposed; poor sod looked strained. He winked at him.

"All right, mate. Get some rest; you need all the beauty sleep you can get. I'll see you in the morning." He turned to Jackson. "Good evening, Mr. Jackson."

He had to force himself to leave Bodie alone in the clinic, force by will alone each step he took down the stairs from the clinic, along the street, across the road to the saloon in the flickering light of the street fires, and up the stairs to his hired room. The healer would be with Bodie all night, and the healer, improbably, was also a lawman. For once, the fates that lately seemed to be conspiring against them might also this time have provided an inadvertent helping hand. Whatever might befall them in this town before Bodie was well enough to leave, he had at least to trust that Jackson would use his skills to protect his patient for this night at least.


End file.
